BRAZIL: Miracle Man

From the Brazilian heartland last summer came stories of a “miracle man” whose blessing cured the sick in mind and body. The healer was a humble parish priest named Padre Antonio Ribeiro Pinto. By last week he had become a national figure. To seek his blessing, thousands of Brazilians were traveling by special train, by chartered taxi and by bus and truck from as far south as Porto Alegre and as far north as Bahía. Reported TIME Correspondent William White, who went to see for himself:

Before the yellow stucco house at No. 114 Rua 7 de Setembro in the dirty little town of Rio Casca in Minas Gerais State, some 8,000 people, a mosaic of the diseases of Brazil, had been softly singing the haunting hymn I Shall Be with My Mother. The faded grey shutters of the house swung open. A hush came over the malformed, the sick, the hopeful and the curious. One man fell on his knees. Behind him a weeping father supported a son on whose face was an idiot’s grin.

The Hopeful. In the window appeared a tired, ascetic, unshaven old man in a worn black cassock. This was Padre Antonio. In a commanding voice, he announced that he would first bless the sick. Then he singled out some of the most pitiful in the sweating, excited yet strangely quiet crowd. “Stand up and walk,” he said, pointing to a cripple. Others tried to catch his eye. “No, not you. Get away. You there, stand up and walk.” Some of the apparently crippled stood up and walked before the silent crowd.

“I will now bless the water, the candles, the medals.” Thousands of hands were instantly stretched overhead, and in the shabby cobbled street, flanked on each side by one-story stucco houses, all built on stilts, one saw only the waving uncorked bottles—beer bottles, whiskey bottles, thermos jugs, casks and demijohns. Some people held up candles, some picture postcards of Padre Antonio, some cheap Virgin Mary medallions.

“A miracle!” cried someone in the crowd. A toothless, middle-aged woman, dressed in black save for a gay bandanna around her head, came hobbling down the street. “For two years I have not been able to walk,” she cried. “I was carried to the Father. Now look at me. I’m walking. Viva Padre Antonio.” Those who followed her joined in a throaty “Viva.” Then she shouted: “Viva our Lady of Grace,” and the crowd chorused. Two women with her wept. Men doffed their hats as she moved slowly past.

The Healing. White-haired, 67-year-old Padre Antonio cannot recall his first healing. “When I was ordained a priest,” he says, “I was sent here. The people were very poor, and when they got sick they had no money for medicine. So they came to me for help, and I told them to do as the Church told them—use the holy water, say three Hail Marys and cure yourself.” In effect, that is what he is still doing.